


Connections

by Applesandbannas747



Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: Fake Dating, Fence Secret Santa 2020, M/M, Mistletoe, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28496172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: Seiji is sure the universe is out to get him when his flight gets canceled on Christmas Eve and his only chance to get home is through an annoying ex-roommate he thought he'd seen the last of years ago. But the reconnection may just make Seiji rethink his bad luck.
Relationships: Nicholas Cox/Seiji Katayama
Comments: 11
Kudos: 80





	Connections

**Author's Note:**

> For [Saberseiji](https://saberseiji.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Happy New Year!! I had such a fun time filling your prompt "seiji/nick and christmas eve/delayed flights," I hope you like what I did with it 💜
> 
> As a silly side note, my sister wanted me to name this 'Gayover' as a pun on layover, and I think it's hilarious so wanted to share.

“This is an announcement for passengers on flight 747 to Hartford. The flight has been delayed due to bad weather conditions…”

Seiji jerked his head up to the flight board. There it was, just as the announcement had promised. His flight had been delayed. Seiji stood, slipping his book under an arm and his carry-on over a shoulder. The ticket windows and help desk were already clamoring with people. Poor fools, Seiji had thought an hour ago, listening as flights got delayed and canceled and the misplaced passengers had flooded to harried employees, trying to argue their flight back on time.

Now, Seiji was joining them. Elbows shoved into him and mouths shouted past his ear, making him wince. He didn’t like the pressing bodies and garbled noise of crowds. But he pushed through this one, trying to make his way to the front and reason with the woman who manned the counter. The sea of people was not easy to wade through, and Seiji cast a last desperate glance at the board. His flight was still delayed. Seiji had heard three flights thus far be announced delayed only to eventually be canceled. He knew that his plane wouldn’t be taking flight today. But _he_ still needed to.

_So I’ll find another plane._

At that thought, his eyes happened to catch on another flight to Hartford. Flight 108. It departed in just under twenty minutes. Seiji turned back to the swarms of people in front of him. He needed on that flight. But there was no way he’d get transferred in time. Checking the flight board again, he knew what he needed to do.

Seiji escaped the swarm and walked purposefully to gate F12. A man with a terrible haircut and all-black clothing was making his way to the gate too. Seiji reached out and took his elbow. The man turned, a tension in his posture and face making Seiji think that grabbing strangers was probably a bad idea.

“Seiji?”

“Nicholas?”

Nicholas Cox dropped the hand that, unless Seiji was much mistaken, had been raising in a fist. Seiji remembered that. Nicholas’s volatile temper and tendency to snap when people got in his space without warning.

“Jesus, how long has it been?” Nicholas asked. Strangely, a smile was spreading across his face. “Miss me?”

“What? Oh, no. I didn’t recognize you until—I need your ticket,” Seiji remembered suddenly. He didn’t have time for distractions. They’d be locking the gate in ten minutes.

“My ticket?”

“Yes, my flight got canceled. I need to get home.”

“Me too, that’s why I’ve got a ticket to Connecticut. Kinda crazy that I’d run into you here. What are the odds?”

“The odds of running into my slovenly high school roommate miles away from home and years after I thought I was done with you forever? Very slim. But the universe seems intent on punishing me today.”

“Weren’t you just asking for my ticket? Shouldn’t you be trying to suck up to me?”

“I don’t need to suck up to you, I’ve got something better than pretty words.”

“What’s that?”

“Money,” Seiji said, and Nicholas snorted. “How much do you want for your ticket?”

“I see you haven’t changed at all. I don’t want your money, Seiji.”

“I don’t have time to squabble. Name your price.”

“Nope.” Nicholas turned on his heel and continued walking. Seiji’s hand was still on his arm and he tightened his fingers before it slipped off, pulling Nicholas to a stop again.

“My parents will be very disappointed if I don’t make it for Christmas,” Seiji hissed.

“And because I haven’t got parents waiting for me back home, I should give up my seat for you?”

“I didn’t mean—,” Seiji protested, cutting off as a new announcement sounded. His flight was officially canceled. “You’re my last chance to get home tonight.” Nicholas emitted an incredulous sound and then continued walking. Seiji kept pace with him. “Surely, there’s something I can offer you for your ticket. A little delay would be worth what I could give you.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“Nicholas—.”

It was too late. They were at the gate and Nicholas was handing over his ticket. Seiji closed his eyes, easing back the frustration. Nicholas had always had a particular knack for drawing out that frustration in him.

“You two enjoy your flight.” 

Seiji’s eyes snapped open, fixing on the man who’d spoken and was now handing Nicholas back his ticket. No, _tickets._ There were two.

Seiji was moving again. Because Nicholas was moving, Seiji’s hand still tucked into his elbow and pulling him right along through the gate.

“Are you abandoning your luggage?” Nicholas asked.

“Am I—? No, I don’t trust it not to get lost. I prefer to travel light.”

“Same here,” Nicholas agreed, hoisting a strap of his own carry-on.

“You…had two tickets?”

“Yup.”

“But…” Seiji realized it wasn’t any of his business before getting the rest of that question out. “How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing. Merry Christmas.”

“There must be something I can do,” Seiji persisted, uncomfortable taking the favor from a boy—man—he knew for a fact didn’t like him. At the thought, Seiji realized he was still on Nicholas’s arm and let go.

“There is one thing,” Nicholas said slyly, eyes sliding over to Seiji lazily as they boarded the plane and grin so untrustworthy, it counted more as a smirk. Seiji almost had time to regret his wording when Nicholas continued, “Try not to be a major asshole to anyone this trip, okay?”

Seiji didn’t dignify the request with an answer. He also refrained from passing a comment on the shabby row of seats in coach Nicholas stopped them at, ushering Seiji down it after he’d crammed his bag into the overhead storage.

* * *

“Aha!”

Seiji looked up from his book to scowl at Nicholas for shouting in his ear. He’d pulled down the tray on the back of the seat in front of him—seats that were, in Seiji’s opinion, far too close for comfort—and had his laptop balanced on top of it.

“Got WiFi,” Nicholas explained. Seiji hadn’t looked over in curiosity, only to assure that his eardrums wouldn’t be assaulted again, and he didn’t care to hear an explanation. But Nicholas explained anyway. “I’ve been trying to connect for ages.”

Seiji tried to return to reading, but Nicholas wasn’t quieting down.

“Bobby! Can you hear me?”

Seiji looked over again at the name, seeing his former classmate on the screen. The seating was so cramped that Seiji was sure the webcam had caught him in its picture when he did so. Bobby’s eyes went wide in a familiar way and Seiji suspected he’d been spotted. A squeaked gasp also rushed through the speakers. Nicholas noticed too and looked down at the cord of his headphones, which he’d clearly forgotten to plug into the computer.

“Is that—Nick, when you said you were bringing someone home for the holidays, I figured you were being secretive for stupid reasons, not because you’re dating _Seiji_ —!”

Bobby’s bubbly burble cut off as Nicholas shoved his headphones into the jack, pulling them up over his ears and trying—but failing—to get a word in before the picture on the computer fuzzed and blipped.

“Stupid internet,” Nicholas muttered, closing his computer with a sigh. “Don’t suppose I’ll be able to make it work again.”

“Are you seeing Bobby tomorrow, then?”

Seiji remembered the two being close at Kings Row, the boys' school they’d all attended. Nicholas had been close with several of the boys in their hall.

“It’s his first Christmas married, I don’t want to steal their whole day. But, yeah, a visit will be in order.”

Seiji nodded. That made sense. Couples could be tiring to be around.

“How long have you two been together?”

The question took Seiji and Nicholas both by surprise. The old woman in the aisle seat smiled over at them pleasantly, waiting for an answer. Why did she think she’d get one? Seiji was about to tell her to mind her own business, but two things stopped him.

One: Nicholas’s raised eyebrow. _Try not to be a major asshole._

Two: a flight attendant stopping by their row to offer peanuts or some other mundane snack. He was suddenly very aware of the ticket that was not under his name in Nicholas’s pocket.

“Six months,” Seiji blurted a panicked and unthinking response.

“How lovely,” the woman said. “The first Christmas together is always a special one, cherish it.”

“We will…?” Nicholas said. If it sounded unsure or insincere, their companion didn’t notice.

She started talking about her first Christmas with her late husband. As she prattled on, Nicholas spared one glance over his shoulder. His raised eyebrow now asked what the hell Seiji thought he was doing, and his intentionally flat mouth assured Seiji that, whatever it was, Nicholas very much wanted to laugh at it.

“And that’s why it’s important to make a good first impression,” the woman finished. “You never know if his parents will be your in-laws one day.”

This comment seemed to be directed at Seiji. He nodded, wondering if there was a way out of this line of conversation, but he’d doomed them to it himself.

“It’s a little early for that sort of talk, of course,” she said, misunderstanding Seiji’s reluctance to engage. “But it’s a good sign that your man wants to take you home for the holidays.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Seiji agreed just to make her stop talking to him. Nicholas looked infuriatingly amused.

“I hardly had a choice,” Nicholas interjected. Seiji narrowed his eyes at Nicholas, but he didn’t mention Seiji’s insistence on boarding this flight at all, even though Seiji was sure the reference was intentional. “Everyone’s been going on for years about me needing to find someone, and I finally had someone I wanted them to meet.”

Seiji wasn’t an expert in human expressions or emotions, but he questioned if Nicholas’s smile was a little too nonchalant, his voice a little too loaded with casual buoyancy for it to be a line pulled out of nowhere. Again, Seiji wondered who his apprehended ticket had belonged to.

Nicholas chatted with the old woman, whose name turned out to be Agatha, for the remaining forty minutes of the flight. Seiji opened his book, pretending to read. But he listened in, just to make sure Nicholas didn’t say anything incriminating. He never did. Mostly, they swapped stories of their lives. But as the plane descended to the landing strip, Agatha whispered something in Nicholas’s ear. Not very quietly.

“He’s a real beauty.”

And Nicholas responded, without even the pretense of secrecy, “I know.”

Seiji slammed his book shut, satisfied when the impressive sound of a thousand-page hardcover snapping shut startled Nicholas.

Nicholas bid farewell to his new friend and Seiji returned her parting nod. But as they emerged from the plane, Seiji faltered on the steps. Nicholas had to take his arm to get him moving again, pulling him toward the building.

This was all wrong.

“Where are we?” Seiji asked.

“Oh, is that what’s up?” Nicholas asked as they pushed into the airport. “I thought you were startled by the snow.”

“I’ve seen snow before, Nicholas,” Seiji snapped.

“We’re at our connection.”

“Connection?”

“Yeah. Weren’t you listening to any of the announcements?”

“I was reading.” And not paying any attention to outside noise because he hadn’t thought he needed to.

“Well, this flight has a connection in New Haven. It was cheaper than a direct flight.”

“When does our next flight leave?”

“We landed a little late so forty minutes?”

“What’s the flight number?” Seiji asked, scanning the flight board. Nicholas was doing likewise. “Nicholas?”

Seiji turned to insist Nicholas answer him but he saw in Nicholas’s face what he’d been checking for on the board.

“Canceled,” Nicholas said glumly. “And there’s no other flights to Hartford tonight, before you try to go steal a ticket off someone else.”

“Buy a ticket,” Seiji corrected. “I didn’t steal anything. Nor did I try to.”

“Uh-huh. Anyway, look for yourself. We’re trapped here. Shit! I was really hoping to get to the hotel tonight.”

“The hotel?”

“I don’t exactly live in Connecticut anymore, do I?”

“Then why were you so anxious to get back there?”

“Because I haven’t seen my friends in a year and I already had the tickets. But I guess neither of us are getting home tonight.”

Seiji eyed the queue of people gathering around every available airport employee. The flight board showed that almost every flight had been canceled. Nobody was happy to be stranded here on Christmas Eve.

“I’ll go see what the new plan is,” Nicholas said, slipping his bag off his shoulder and dropping it into Seiji’s arms. “Wait over there with our stuff. It’ll probably be a while.”

Seiji couldn’t even agree that he would do any such thing before Nicholas was gone. Rearranging the new bag that had been shoved on him, Seiji decided to follow Nicholas’s advice and find a seat to wait for him. It _did_ take a while for Nicholas to sort out their accommodations.

“Okay,” he said when he eventually returned. “We’ve got a flight for eight in the morning tomorrow, and they’ve put us up in a hotel for tonight. You ready to go find it? And probably some food too.”

“Why are we suddenly doing everything as a pair?” Seiji asked, standing and handing Nicholas’s bag back to him.

“We _have_ been dating for six months, remember?”

“Don’t,” Seiji said warningly, willing the heat across his neck not to creep up any higher.

“What was that all about, anyway?”

“I’ve never acquired a ticket quite this way before and I suspect it’s illegal.”

“And pretending to date me makes it less illegal?”

“I didn’t want to raise suspicions. Bobby thought I was your—and when Agatha asked, there was a flight attendant right next to us. I thought kicking up a fuss would be ill advised.”

Nicholas had the nerve to laugh at him for that.

“Explaining a change in plans isn’t suspicious, Seiji.”

“Obviously, I miscalculated,” Seiji gritted out.

“No, you’ve got a point. This is definitely funnier.”

“You’re as obnoxious as ever.”

“Some things never change. Oh, hey Agatha!” Nicholas said brightly, looking past Seiji. “You on your way to the hotel too?”

“Can you believe the luck? We were this close to making it.” She pinched her fingers close together to demonstrate. But she didn’t have the same anger on her face that many of the people who swarmed around them did.

“Tell me about it. Hey, Seiji and I were planning to find a bite to eat after checking in. Want to come with? No one should be eating Christmas Eve dinner alone.”

“That sounds wonderful, dear. I’d like that.”

“Let’s find the hotel. We can meet in the lobby after ditching our bags.”

“But first,” Agatha said, stopping abruptly and looking upward, “I think you owe someone a kiss.”

“What?”

Seiji looked up to see what Agatha was staring at and the sight he found filled him with dread. Who hung _mistletoe_ at an airport? It seemed like a terrible idea, but there it was. Finally, Nicholas caught on, eyes going wide as he caught sight of the wretched plant too.

“I don’t think that’s…” Seiji said weakly, but others had noticed now too, a couple of people with nothing better to do stopping to watch like this was some movie moment. It wasn’t. It was a scene straight out of a nightmare.

“Kiss!” someone shouted. Then again, Agatha joining in, “Kiss!” And then more people taking up the chant, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Nicholas looked down from the ceiling and met Seiji’s eyes. His were sparkling with laughter. Seiji hated him.

“We wouldn’t want to kick up a fuss,” Nicholas said with a terrible grin.

An arm wrapped around Seiji, a hand spanning his lower back now pressing Seiji forward. He should have shoved Nicholas away—he could have. Easily. But he felt trapped in place as people circled around them, whooping and chanting. He was unable to move as Nicholas pulled him in and fit his palm to Seiji’s cheek, face lit up with laughter that never came.

Nicholas’s mouth pressed into Seiji’s and something in his stomach lurched. He was so surprised by it that his hands jumped up to Nicholas’s shoulders and took hold. To push him away. The circle around them would break now that they’d succumbed to the chants.

Seiji didn’t push Nicholas away. He pressed fingers into the layers of black covering Nicholas’s shoulders as Nicholas’s arm around his back began to press at Seiji again, despite him already being flat against Nicholas’s chest.

Nicholas gently eased Seiji’s head to the side and when Seiji tilted his chin, their mouths slotted together more solidly. The sounds of the bustling, noisy crowd faded, the entire world shrinking down to Nicholas and the way his thumb swept gently across Seiji’s cheek as his tongue matched the movement across Seiji’s lips. Opening his mouth slightly, Seiji sunk deeper into the kiss. He could feel the warmth Nicholas pressed against him—into him—in every limb and finger and toe. It was a strange tingling sensation that made him fist his hands in Nicholas’s jacket.

A wolf whistle cut through the air and reminded Seiji where he was. And what he was doing. He stepped off, pulling out of Nicholas’s grasp. At least Nicholas no longer looked on the verge of laughter. Or amused at all.

“Let’s find the hotel, shall we?” Seiji asked Agatha, embarrassed by the spectacle he’d just been involved in and wanting badly to get away from the scene of it. His cheeks flamed at the indignity of kissing for other people’s amusement.

The hotel was nearby and not hard to find. In the lobby, Seiji offered his bag to Nicholas. He took it, but not without a questioning look.

“Taking advantage of the boyfriend card to make me carry your stuff now?”

“I’ll wait here for Agatha,” Seiji explained. “You go check-in for us and put the bags in our room.”

“Sure,” Nicholas said slowly. “Seems like a solid plan, I guess. See you in a couple minutes.”

Seiji watched Nicholas go with relief. He needed a moment alone. Not alone _with_ Nicholas but alone from him. He wished there hadn’t been mistletoe. He wished that no one had noticed it. He wished Nicholas hadn’t kissed him. He wished he could stop thinking about it.

* * *

“What happened here?” Nicholas asked, finding Seiji with Agatha and a handful of other people that she’d managed to befriend in the time it had taken Nicholas to get their room sorted.

“A party,” Agatha replied, to which Nicholas nodded like it was a sensible explanation.

Not many restaurants were open, but they found some little 24/7 breakfast place and, indeed, had something of a party. Everyone griped about delayed flights and shared plans for the next day with each other.

“It’s Nicholas and Seiji’s first Christmas together,” Agatha informed the table. “Nicholas is taking him home.”

“Connecticut’s home for him too,” Nicholas said. For what purpose, Seiji didn’t know. “We’re spending tomorrow with his parents. They’ll be very disappointed if we can’t make it, so let’s all hope our flights take off on time.”

“Cheers to that!” someone called, setting off a round of echos.

“Tell us your story, then,” one of the men requested when drinks had been put back down.

“We were roommates in high school, actually,” Nicholas started. Why tell them any of this? Seiji didn’t know. “We didn’t really get along at the time.”

“Why not?” Agatha asked.

“Different life experience, I guess.”

“Nicholas was an inconsiderate roommate,” Seiji said irritably. For some reason, that earned laughter around the table.

“Our school was one of those old, impressive boys schools built for rich kids,” Nicholas explained. “I was there on scholarship. Through a lottery program they do each year for incoming freshmen. And I ended up with Seiji for my stay there. I’ve got plenty of stories—like the time he locked me out of the room because I was being _too disruptive.”_

“I was studying for AP tests and you wouldn’t stop singing.” As Seiji said it, the defense sounded childish to him. Looking back on a lot of their arguments, Seiji found them similarly trivial. At the time, they’d felt much more dire.

“Needless to say,” Nicholas said, laughing with the rest of the table, “we didn’t date in high school. But we ran into each other again, hundreds of miles and years away from that school and…” Nicholas shrugged.

“How serendipitous,” Agatha said.

Now that Seiji thought about it, it was a coincidence that they’d ever met in the first place, him and Nicholas. They’d roomed together for four years even if they’d never quite gotten along, but if Nicholas hadn’t won the scholarship, if Seiji hadn’t decided to go to Kings Row, if they hadn’t been paired as roommates…they wouldn’t have met at all. Meetings were made of coincidence, of course. But it _was_ strange to have met him again today. How many coincidences had lined up to lead them to right here and now?

“Yeah,” Nicholas nodded. “It was. After we reconnected, there was just this—this _spark._ There was always something there in school, high tensions and close quarters, you know how it is. But that wasn’t the right time or place for us. When we met again…it just made sense to explore that _something_ between us that we’d never had room for before.”

Nicholas said it so convincingly, even Seiji watched him as he spoke. For the rest of dinner, his words chased each other around in Seiji’s head.

_This spark._

Did it count as a spark when the world melted around you from a kiss?

_That something between us._

_Had_ there been something between them?

_Something there in high school, high tensions and close quarters._

Seiji remembered a fight in a closet, bodies close and faces inches apart. He remembered other moments of strange closeness too. Moments of high emotion, of a bubbling _something_ in Seiji’s stomach when he looked at Nicholas.

_He’s a beauty._

_I know._

* * *

When they returned to the room after dinner, Seiji was faced with a very obvious and yet still unexpected problem.

“Brings back old times, huh?” Nicholas asked, coming to stand next to Seiji.

“I seem to remember _old times_ involving two beds.”

“Is this the part where you tell me to go sleep in the bathtub? Because there’s not one. I checked.”

“I—no, of course not,” Seiji scowled. He _had_ been considering telling Nicholas to sleep on the floor, but, hearing Nicholas say it, the request seemed as childish as some of the spats they’d gotten into at school. “It’s your room, technically. Your tickets. I’ll take the floor.”

“If you want. But I don’t mind sharing the bed.”

Seiji started to shake his head. There was no way he was sharing a bed with Nicholas Cox. Not when they were in school together, not now, not ever.

But it had been a long flight. An entirely uncomfortable flight. And there’d be more waiting in uncomfortable airport seating tomorrow, followed by another uncomfortable flight. The thought of a night on the floor didn’t do anything to ease the aches and pains in his muscles from the long day.

“Just don’t drool all over me.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not really drool-worthy.”

Seiji had the urge to jerk an elbow backward and into Nicholas’s ribs. He resisted.

“I’m serious, if I wake up to a soggy pillow, we will be having words.”

“Words, how scary. And why would I be on _your_ pillow?”

“Because I know you never seem to use pillows correctly.”

“Like you never used shower curtains correctly?”

“It went to good use.”

“I’ve still got that thing, you know.”

“What—the duck curtain?”

“Yup, snagged it our last day in the dorms.”

“You did not.”

“I did too. I needed a shower curtain and it seemed sad to leave our little duckies behind. I thought they’d be lonely without us arguing through them.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope, I’m dead ducking serious.”

Horrifyingly, the terrible pun made Seiji splutter a laugh, which he cut off quickly but there was really no mistaking it. Nicholas’s eyes were bright, mouth hanging in a stupid expression—like his jaw had fallen open and was now slowly pulling into a smile.

“I’m showering first,” Seiji said, snatching his bag and making for the bathroom. “I remember how inconsiderate you are with hot water.”

“Hey! I’ve gotten better about that!” Nicholas called as the door shut between them.

It felt good to get the grime of the airport off. Seiji was lucky he’d been in the window seat instead of pressed between two people the entire flight. The thought of it made him shudder. _How claustrophobic._ He didn’t know how Nicholas had managed it without a complaint.

Seiji paused, fingers stilling in his hair and water streaming down over him. There wasn’t a chance that…but, no, there was no way Nicholas had intentionally given him the window seat. Seiji snapped out of his temporary insanity of thinking Nicholas had been purposefully considerate of him and resumed washing his hair.

“It really is like old times,” Nicholas said when Seiji stepped from the bathroom.

“What are you talking about?” Seiji asked, storing his bag by the bed before climbing into it.

“Those pajamas look awful familiar.”

Seiji had never been embarrassed about his pajamas before, but he _was_ an adult now. And still wearing the same ones he’d worn as a kid.

“I already know I like them,” Seiji explained pragmatically. “What’s the point in trying new ones when I can buy a pair I know I’ll like?”

“Hey, no judgment. I think it’s cute.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t drool over me.”

“Maybe I lied. Maybe I _am_ drooling over you. And maybe you’re blushing over me.”

“I am not!” Seiji shouted at the closing bathroom door.

As the water started to run in the other room, Seiji slipped out of bed to viciously palm off the lights. Finding his way back under the covers, he closed his eyes and feigned sleep when Nicholas came back out.

“I know you’re not asleep,” he said. “Give it up, we roomed for years. You sleep like a statue on your back, not in a ball on your side.”

Nicholas climbed into bed. Seiji ignored him.

“Do you ever think it’s strange that we lived together all that time but we never exchanged numbers?”

“We weren’t friends.”

“Why is that?”

“You were annoying.”

“You were mean.”

“There you go, mystery solved. Goodnight.”

“Where are your headphones?” Nicholas asked.

“I haven’t had to use them since high school. For obvious reasons. I couldn’t have predicted I’d need them tonight and so didn’t make room for them in my bag.”

“So, what I’m hearing is that you have to listen to me tonight.”

“What?” Seiji asked with a sigh. “What are you so keen on saying?”

“Nothing really. Just. You said you never expected to see me again. I guess I’m stupid but I thought the opposite. I thought we’d have time, you know? To figure it out.”

“To figure what out?”

“You’re seriously gonna pretend you didn’t feel it too?”

“Who was my ticket for?” Seiji asked.

“Huh?”

“You were bringing someone home, weren’t you? To meet your family.”

“I don’t really have…”

“Bobby. And Eugene. That’s who you have back in Connecticut, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So who were you trying to introduce them to?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore. Obviously, I’m not introducing them to anyone.”

“I’m…sorry.”

“Don’t be. We didn’t fit. I thought we could but—it’s fine. Sometimes breakups are for the better. You should be grateful this one happened, since it gave you a seat on that plane.”

“I’m not getting home until tomorrow either way.”

“Oh. Yeah, you’re right. You should have let them put you into a nice hotel room and taken a first-class flight in the morning directly home.”

Seiji didn’t say anything. Nicholas was right. Seiji should have done just that. Sleep wouldn’t come to him here in this cramped bed with the noise of flights rumbling overhead.

Shifting onto his back, Seiji stared up at the ceiling for ages, mind refusing to rest. His heart kept pounding too hard in his chest. He should have slept on the floor.

“I am grateful,” Seiji said quietly, long after conversation had ceased and Nicholas had drifted to sleep, “that there was a place for me on that plane.”

Nicholas mumbled something in his sleep. Something that sounded a little like _me too._

When an arm flung across Seiji’s chest, it wasn’t really any great surprise. Nicholas always slept sprawled across mattresses and hugging pillows. What _was_ a surprise was that Seiji let his arm stay there. And when a leg followed, he let it stay as well. And when a head lolled into his shoulder, he didn’t bump it away.

Seiji had never gotten along with Nicholas Cox. In high school, they’d fought often. Often enough for Nicholas to plague his thoughts and every tiny detail of his existence to become of acute—and irate—interest to Seiji.

_You’re seriously gonna pretend you didn’t feel it too?_

Seiji had felt a lot of things. He didn’t know if any of them were the thing Nicholas was alluding to. He’d never thought much about it. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it now.

Minutes may have turned to hours but Seiji couldn’t be sure of the passage of time. He was stuck in the limbo of wanting to sleep but being unable to. Nicholas was heavy against him. It wasn’t that Seiji couldn’t get comfortable that kept him from sleep. It was the knowledge that he _could_ get comfortable and fall fast to sleep against Nicholas.

_You have two options,_ he thought to himself. Push Nicholas off. Or get comfortable.

Seiji shifted to his side. The adjustment allowed for Nicholas to fall more securely against him.

“Don’t drool on my pillow,” Seiji warned, arm folding over the one at his side and ankle accidentally hooking with Nicholas’s under the covers.

“…won’t,” Nicholas murmured into the nape of Seiji’s neck.

Seiji’s eyes drifted closed and his mind fuzzed out, Nicholas’s warmth pulling him into sleep.

* * *

“I stand corrected. Apparently, you _can_ sleep on your side, curled like a cat.”

Seiji was slow in waking, a rarity for him. But sleep seemed so much more comfortable than usual. When he realized _why_ that seemed to be the case, he was quick in coming back to the waking world.

“What time is it?” he asked as he sat up. Nicholas didn’t move. His arm slid down Seiji’s chest and pooled across his hips, but other than that, Nicholas didn’t move an inch. His leg was still hitched over Seiji’s, his head still on Seiji’s pillow, and his pelvis pressed to Seiji’s hip. Seiji could feel the heat of Nicholas’s chest down his back.

“It’s six,” Nicholas said with a yawn.

“Six? Our flight leaves at eight!” Seiji pulled out of Nicholas’s arms, feet landing on the floor hurriedly. 

“You’re one of those people that likes to sit at the airport for ten hours, aren’t you?”

“You’re one of those people that thinks half an hour is plenty of time to make it through security, aren’t you?”

Nicholas was dressed when Seiji emerged from the bathroom ready to go, and his bag was already packed. Seiji did a check of his own possessions, and then the room as Nicholas brushed his teeth.

“You’re not going to fight me on this?” Seiji asked as they left their room for the airport.

“Usually I would. Seems a little overkill to leave so early when we’re all of ten minutes away, but I’ll let you have your way this time.”

“Why?”

Nicholas shrugged. The shrug turned into a stretch, complete with an obnoxiously loud yawn and a slightly displaced shirt. Nicholas smirked as he lowered his arms and Seiji looked away, hurrying them toward security. A hand caught at his elbow and he jerked to a stop.

“Your name’s not on this ticket,” Nicholas hissed. “How are you going to get in?”

“Only just thought of that, did you?” Seiji asked, raising an eyebrow at Nicholas’s apparent concern for his ability to get on the flight. “No, my name’s not on one of your tickets, but it is on _a_ ticket. I booked a random flight last night while Agatha made friends in the lobby.”

“You clever bastard,” Nicholas said, releasing Seiji.

“Hardly.”

Just as planned, Seiji was able to use his ticket to get into the airport, and once there, nobody cared which ticket he used. Assuming their new flight allowed them to board at all. Seiji watched its status suspiciously the entire wait, unable to concentrate on anything else.

“The good news,” Nicholas said, “is that it’s a really short flight. You’ll be to your parents for lunch. Are they coming to pick you up?”

“Yes. And you…?”

“Gonna grab an Uber. I didn’t want to do introductions at the airport.”

“How recent was your breakup?”

“Kind of a touchy subject, Seiji, damn.”

“I only wondered because you haven’t told your friends about it yet.”

“It wasn’t a recent thing.”

“Then you kept hoping they’d come back?”

“You’re brutal. No, it’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“Honestly? I didn’t want the comfort. I wasn’t torn up about it and knew Bobby and Eugene wouldn’t believe me. Or maybe I thought they _would_ believe me and they’d go back to telling me I need to get over high school. I didn’t want to hear it, either way.”

“You’ll hear it now. You’re going to have to explain to Bobby what happened, as he’s under the impression that _I’m_ your boyfriend.” Seiji was not Nicholas’s boyfriend. Nor did he have any desire to be, despite the small satisfaction he felt knowing that Nicholas wasn’t hung up over his last one.

“God, yeah, that’ll be a fun misunderstanding to clear up.”

“I’m sure.”

Conversation died again and they sat in silence until it was time to board the plane. Seiji let Nicholas lead them on, but once again, he stepped out of the way and gestured Seiji into the row first. Seiji took the offer but it troubled him. Nicholas was being strangely nice.

So when Nicholas’s head found its way back to his shoulder, Seiji returned the favor and let him rest there. Their pillow had been dry this morning, Seiji only hoped his shirt would be equally so by the end of this flight.

“What are the odds?” one of the men they’d dined with the night before said, falling into the last seat in their row and looking at Nicholas, who was already dead asleep. “Didn’t get much sleep last night?”

“No,” Seiji said, only realizing when the man nodded knowingly what had been implied there. He flushed and scrambled for some way to backtrack. He didn’t have time.

“He’s really sweet on you, isn’t he?”

“I…guess?”

“He is. Trust me, if my last boy had looked at me like that, we’d still be together.”

“Didn’t you have an earlier flight?” Seiji asked to get off the topic of Nicholas. What _were_ the odds of being seated next to someone on this flight who thought they were dating?

“It got canceled and I got down-graded. I think your boyfriend’s got the right idea sleeping through this.” And with that, he pulled out a sleep mask and neck pillow and joined Nicholas in napping. Seiji was glad for the reprieve in talking, especially to people who were under the impression that he was dating the man sleeping on his shoulder.

* * *

“Nicholas, we’re here,” Seiji said, coaxing Nicholas back to wakefulness. “How can you sleep through all the noise and jostling?” he wondered.

“It’s a skill,” Nicholas replied, lingering on Seiji’s shoulder until the plane started clearing out.

They collected their bags and filed out of the plane with the rest of the stragglers. Seiji scanned the crowds once they were inside the airport, making their way through it to the pickup lanes, where Nicholas would find some mode of transportation to his hotel. Seiji’s parents should be—

“There they are,” he said, not meaning to voice the words out loud. Nicholas followed Seiji’s gaze.

“Seiji,” Nicholas called urgently when Seiji started to move toward his parents. And again, Nicholas grabbed him. But not at the elbow. Seiji looked down at his hand, caught in Nicholas’s, then up at Nicholas’s face.

“Seiji!”

Seiji looked back toward his parents and saw that they’d seen him too, and now they were here, both pulling him into a brief hug.

“We’re so glad you could make it,” Father said, “we worried when your flight was canceled.”

“I found a way home.”

“And who is this?” Mom asked. Seiji looked again to his hand. It was empty now, but Nicholas still stood close by.

“Oh, this is my boyfriend, Nicholas,” Seiji said. He didn’t understand the mild surprise on his parents’ faces until Nicholas stepped up properly beside him, taking his hand again.

“Yup,” he agreed. “That’s right!”

Seiji realized what he’d said then and mortification struck him like a physical blow. It was only because he hadn’t gotten much sleep, because he’d just spent the last day talking exclusively to people who thought Nicholas was his boyfriend—he’d just gotten mixed up and _that_ had come out. He wanted to snatch the words back. But it was too late. No matter what he did now, he’d already said them.

“We’re happy to have you, Nicholas,” Mom said, recovering from her surprise, but sparing a curious look for Seiji. It wasn’t like him to pull surprises like this. “The car’s this way.”

And just like that, they’d accepted Seiji’s blunder as fact and were moving on. Seiji didn’t have much choice but to follow, Nicholas coming along easily beside him. He had to remedy this before it got any further. He had to—

Nicholas pulled Seiji to a stop. He was looking up. Seiji could guess why.

“What are the chances?” Seiji asked, eyes directed at the mistletoe dangling above them.

“I keep wondering the same thing,” Nicholas said, hand tightening around Seiji’s. “What are the chances that we meet again? I don’t want to leave it to chance again, Seiji.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve accidentally declared me your boyfriend twice. Would you consider calling me your boyfriend for real?”

That took Seiji by surprise. All Nicholas’s talk about their _something_ in high school, all his little kindnesses—Seiji hadn’t really thought he meant he wanted _this._

“For how long?” Seiji asked for clarification.

“For as long as you’ll have me?” Nicholas offered with a bemused little smile. Seiji thought it was a perfectly reasonable question.

“So this isn’t just so you don’t have to tell your friends that you broke up with your actual boyfriend months ago?”

“I just said,” Nicholas laughed, “I’d like _you_ to be my actual boyfriend. But we’ll have to fess up, either way; it’s too funny a story to keep to ourselves.”

Seiji pressed his lips together in displeasure at the thought. He could imagine the way Nicholas would tell it and the way Bobby would giggle sweetly and Eugene would guffaw boisterously at it. Nicholas was quietly pulling Seiji nearer, a hand dancing along his side, waiting for permission to take hold. Seiji let himself be drawn in close. He could live with that story, he supposed, if Nicholas told it while smiling at him like that as he told it, his fingers laced in Seiji’s.

“Would you like to spend Christmas with me?” Seiji asked, brushing a hand across Nicholas’s cheek and settling against it. “I’d like to introduce my parents to my boyfriend properly.”

“I’d love to,” Nicholas said. The words tickled against Seiji’s lips. And then the tickle was replaced with a soft pressure as Nicholas fit his mouth against Seiji’s again.

As before, the world shrank down to Nicholas. Nicholas’s warmth pressing against his chest. Nicholas’s hand steady on his waist. Nicholas’s thumb brushing across his knuckles—such a small touch amidst the rest, but one that Seiji took note of nonetheless. Nicholas’s hair bristling under the tips of Seiji’s fingers cupped around his cheek. Nicholas’s kisses, which disarmed him so completely.

Pulling Nicholas closer under the mistletoe for one last kiss before he forced himself away from his boyfriend—for now—Seiji had to smile at his fortune. Fortune, which, twenty-four-hours ago, Seiji would have called terrible. A canceled flight on Christmas Eve. And Seiji couldn’t be more grateful for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and here's to hoping 2021 has good things in store for us all! ✨


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